Album Review as Genre and First Review

Album Review as Genre

The three key features of an album review as a genre of writing are not ignoring but using your prejudices and ideals, not writing as someone who doesn’t care about what you care about, and don’t be afraid of getting things wrong. The first key feature is embodied in Ann Powers review of Daft Punk’s album Random Access Memories. One of Powers glaring critiques of the album is the lack of female presence. A critique for that some may not be an issue at all, but for Powers is an important ideal that adds a unique perspective on the album. The second key feature is very prominent in Trixie Balm’s review, beginning with the very first paragraph. Her New York slang and use of curse words is by no means formal or would ever be found in a dissertation, but instead is a mirror of herself.

In Amanda Petrusich’s review of Courtney Barnett’s Tell Me How You Really Feel is preceded by background information about Barnett’s origin, sound, and distinctive characteristics about her sound and previous albums. While this information isn’t necessarily about the album itself it acts complimentary in nature. In other words, it sets the stage for the album review. For example, Petrusich discusses how Barnett’s music is uniquely characterized by its subject matter of depression and anxiety. However, Barnett has shifted from singing about anxiety and depression in a familiar and general way in her previous album to individual experience perspective due to her success disassociating from the grounded life. In this way Petrusich identifies what makes Tell Me How You Really Feel unique which would have not been possible without the necessary background information.

Cage the Elephant – Social Cues Review 

Back in 2009, a curious 11-year-old me got his copy on his first rated M game, Borderlands. Rushing home, I eagerly inserted the disc into my PlayStation and was greeted by the almost western like guitar rifts of Ain’t No Rest For the Wicked by Cage the Elephant. A breakout hit that instantly would go on my frequently played list and would put the band on the map. Fast forward to 2019, Cage the Elephant has released their 5^th studio album Social Cues.

While Cage the Elephant hit the ground running with their breakout song Ain’t No Rest For the Wicked from their first studio album, the band’s sound has been hard to pin down since. Albums such as Melophobia have been more psychedelic in fell and Tell Me I’m Pretty is all over the spectrum and heavily influenced by the strains of New Wave Britain. These two have been uniquely different from the bands first album and break out song which featured a more angsty nature.

Social Cues in comparison is full-on American gothic and returns to its roots with more of an angsty feel combined with clever pop influences. The album’s main theme is the high price of success in exhaustion, sanity and lasting relationships. The first song Broken Boy opens in a vengeful garage rock melody singing, “Tell me why I’m forced to live in this skin” and quickly in the next track adds, “I don’t have the strength to play nice”. Echoing the theme that when you become famous society has an expectation of you that you must live up to even at the cost of your personal life and health.

Songs like Broken Boy and House of Glass evoke that familiar sound of urgency with guitarist Brad Shultz escalating the turbulence in his brother’s machine-gun rhyming found in their first studio album that made so many people like myself fans of the band. Even songs that draw from a more pop influence are balanced by the classic angsty lyrics that deal with topics like breaking down, divorce and more. All to be closed out with their own damaged grandeur, a heavy, brooding rock and orchestral flair as conflicted as their lead singer Matt Shultz sings verses like “Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye/I won’t cry, I won’t cry, I won’t cry/Lord knows how hard we tried”. A song that is by no means angsty punk or even pop but still invokes a strong sense of feeling and emotion that all the while is uniquely Cage the Elephant. It quickly became my favorite song after just a few listens of the album and closes out what is not the first album to be written about the reckoning and crossroads in rock & roll life, but a unique and well strung together album that Cage the Elephants of old and new will find pleasant to the ears.